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We have finally decided on a vinyl design for both the FdA and BA shows and I have sent off the necessary information, including window measurements and the designs, to be made. They will be ready for Saturday to be applied to the windows.

So, finally the editing is over and now I have a finished piece of work. I am genuinely proud of what I have produced and I hope that it will have the desired effect on its audience. The music that I edited it too was the perfect choice in my opinion and compliments the footage brilliantly. Below is a screen shot of the finished project.

The original idea didn’t turn out as I had expected. Turns out, maggots really do only eat rotting meat and not apples. There are maggots do, but they are a special breed known as Apple Maggots. Instead of doing a time lapse, I decided to just film the maggots in macro. The results were pretty good and I am definitely happy with the footage I captured. I don’t recommend any one who has a weak stomach to watch it though, it is a little bit gross…

Reflection – Although I am happy with the footage I captured, I am at the same time a little disappointed. When I first had the maggots idea, I had visualised the out come. A time lapse of the apple decaying and being devoured, it would have been brilliant in my final video. But, unfortunately, I did not have the time to execute it properly and given another 2 weeks before starting to edit I would have left a piece of meat to rot and then time lapsed the maggots devour that. None the lees, I am happy with the video results and I am confident it will look brilliant in the final piece.

I have been contemplating what else to time lapse as I think there still needs to be more variety in the edit. I was originally wanted to lapse an apple rotting, but I discovered that it takes quite a while for that to happen and as I have only just begun to experiment with time lapse I think that it would be impractical to attempt such a long lapse. Instead, I had the idea of putting an apple in a tub of maggots and time lapsing them eating it. I hope this will be a quicker process and I will get some decent footage from it.

I have bought some maggots and I will be conducting the time lapse today. I will post the results later.

I mentioned in a previous post about making a grid of photos made up from screen shots of the eyes used in the final video. Below is an example of the images I will be using.

There are 20 images to be put into a 4×6 grid on the first wall of my exhibition space. The other wall will have a framed photo of my own eye, but I am going to burn the frame so it looks decayed and degraded and will link in with the imagery of the burning objects in the video.

Today I burnt things in macro. The result was great, I had some splintered wooden spindels and some wire wool. During a conversation with my tutor, Johny Byrne, we were on the topic of burning things when he suggested the wire wool. When you touch a 9v battery to wire wool, it creates a circuit and ignites the wire causing it to spread along the tiny threads. It looks amazing.

For the splintered wood, I used a small blow torch to burn and char it. This also looked great in macro, along with the embers once the flames had died out it made for brilliant footage.

Camer set up for wood burning.

Blow torch.

Screen shot from the wire wool shoot. It fits in with the rest of the footage really well.

Reflection – The shoot went better than I expected in all honesty, I wasn’t expecting such good results. The wire wool especially looked brilliant, it reminded me of signal pathways in the brain. The footage definitely fits in with the theme of the project and adds a touch of destruction to the video that was already there, but it needed something a bit harsher and vicious. Fire was the perfect thing for it.

Actions – I have already started to edit this footage into the sequence, apart from something to film that represents time I am almost finished in terms of editing.

For the week ahead, there will not be that much to update on as it is mainly piecing together the footage I have so far. I have plans to film some extra footage as well, but I will post about that when necessary.